


Lights Out

by Eazbeaz



Category: Creepypasta - Fandom
Genre: Bipolar Disorder, Blood, Character Death, Depression, Dissociative Identity Disorder, Mental Disorders, OCs - Freeform, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Schizoid Personality Disorder, Short Story, here, i had a burst of motivation to write horror yesterday so, idk if this counts as creepypasta but sure, not really fandom related idk??
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-06-26
Updated: 2019-06-26
Packaged: 2020-05-20 05:26:28
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,423
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19370461
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Eazbeaz/pseuds/Eazbeaz
Summary: Light guides us all.





	Lights Out

    I like the light.

It’s warm. Holds you in its burning embrace.

Not artificial light.

Staring at a lamp. The light is so fake, a copy that could never really replicate the beauty of natural light. It creates patches of white in your eyes. Cold. Lampshades block the full effect of light bathing a room. And although it may be surprising that I love light so dearly, hold it so closely, I hate fake light. It is darkness, but at the same time it is not. I love light for how it feels. Truly looks. How the very existence of it is so lovely. Comforting. 

Yet I create this false light.

Glass.

Tungsten. 

Carefully hand-crafted every day. In and out of that dark, gloomy shop. Only lit by that dreaded fakeness.

Up, up.

Bend, bend.

Strike, strike.

Create the things I hate.

Real light on the other hand is magical.

Staring at the grey sky, with a white sun being the most prominent thing visible. I stare at it. It’s warm. It’s enticing. It’s comforting. Arousing, almost.

I stay there, staring puppy-eyed and awed till my retinas burn.

Flashes of red can appear in my vision. It’s the only time I see that color.

I stare at it till my eyes are dry and tears are pouring down my face, staining my cheeks and my jaws and my neck and my collarbone. Wet, sticky, salty tears. White tears.

My skin turns leathery and a deeper grey from the sun. My tongue grows dry, salivating as I stare open-mouthed, a small dribble of the light grey down my jaw and to my collarbone, staining my grey shirt and the inside of my thin darker grey coat.

So sticky. Salty.

It almost seems as if my eyes have been cut open and sewn back together with a rusty needle guided by an untrained hand. It hurts. But it’s from the thing that lights and warms us, so I don’t mind, even if my vision has gradually gotten more and more patchy and blurry, and my skin has been burnt and greyed and feels much tougher than it used to, compared to that original soft, slightly hairy feeling of warm skin I had.

And now my skin is  _ too _ warm.

I disregard that.

 

My wife in particular has shown her worry. 

 

I would stare at the sun, vision turning almost completely white as I refused to shut my eyes, and when I did, it was all a warm red color that bled through my eyelids.

And she’d come out, hands folded, twitching just slightly. She was a dear, really. Pale grey hair curling around her sweet, round white face. Dark freckles dotted the higher ridge of her nose, and she had gentle, slanted eyes with black irises that betrayed tiredness. Deep, deep tiredness. Worriedness. 

She was just a bit plump, with thick arms and legs, but a thinner waist, and small chest. She wore a black-and-white checkered sweater with a skirt that went to her pale knees.

I had been so enraptured in my staring that I hadn’t even seen her carefully stepping over the plants of the garden, of which I had hastily planted when my dear Clara had nagged me to do something more productive than sitting outside and staring at the sky. I felt her gently tug my plaid grey shirt.

“Thomas…” she gently murmured, “Come along, you should go inside. You’ve been here for much too long.”

Her thumb gently went to the dribble of saliva that had begun to slip from my mouth, wiping it away and holding my arm with a firm grasp. 

Her hands were soft, a pale white-grey in the scorching sun.

I was basically dragged by Clara, feeling my bare feet and ankles brushing against the warm grass of the backyard. It was a medium grey-ish color from what I could see from the bottom of my vision as my eyes twitched towards my wife every so often from the sun.

I could see her brow tilted down gently, and her thin lips in a hard line. She was hiding what she was thinking. I internally shrugged it off, as this was a normal occurrence, and continued my stare directed at the shining sun.

There was another tug on my arm. I jolted, gaze flickering to see my wife frowning at me now. She gently held my leathery hand, rubbing my wrist. 

“Tom,” she said quietly, her other hand pushing the grey hair that curled gently around her eye behind her ear, “I told you that you shouldn’t be staring at the sky and sun like that.”

She pursed her lips, and her gaze flickered slightly to the side. I could feel her hands shaking. “You know what the doctor said…” she said it softly, grip tightening and growing more shaky. She stopped rubbing my wrist. “Your retinas have been almost completely incinerated. You’re growing blind,” she sighed, “He used a lot of words I don’t know, but none of it was good. He was surprised that you haven’t gone completely and permanently blind already from the amount of UV light your eyes have been exposed to… you already can’t see color, but we already know that wasn’t from the sun. Don’t turn yourself blind. I guess if… I guess I could put it like this. If you go blind, you can’t see light. And your skin…” she trailed off, softly touching my tough skin with plump fingers.

Even if she hadn’t trailed off, I wouldn’t have heard her.

_ “Can’t see light. _ ”

Cold darkness. It’s tendrils curled so gently, cunningly, slimy, black. Held your throat and pulled you up like a puppet in a noose.

I lifted my finger to my eye, rough skin pressing against the wet damaged thing. A jolt of pain came from it, but I didn’t pull my finger away.

That is, until Clara grabbed my arm and tugged it away. “Don’t do that!” she cried, fingers gently curled around my muscle-toned arm, “Touching your eye isn’t going to help.”

She shook her head, sighing and shaking. She tugged me inside, and I felt the light slip away as she quickly shut the door. I felt myself flooded with that artificial light.

Clara quickly turned around to face me. “Get some water, you look dehydrated.” Once again, she gently wiped a dribble of saliva from the corner of my lips.

“And… go get some rest. Close your eyes,” she pointed at the stairs, “there are some eye-drops in the upstairs bathroom. Those heavy duty ones that the doctor gave us. Put some in your eyes, okay?”

She seemed to take the slight bob of my head as a yes, as she gently pecked me on the cheek and quickly ran to go up the stairs, seeming almost child-like as she rushed up the wooden, creaky stairs, the thumps from her feet hitting the dark grey wood echoing around.

My eyes strayed to the door, seeing its dark grey frame through the white patches in my vision.

This only lasted for a moment, however, as I dragged myself to walk to the bathroom, practically hearing Clara’s voice gently pleading me.

I leaned over the sink, feeling the cold plastic of the sink in my clenched hand. I met my eyes in the mirror, and studied myself.

Black-grey bushy hair that reached my neck and curled at the ends, with grey skin and black eyes. There were darker grey circles beneath my dark eyes. 

Then again, I wasn’t truly this monochrome palette. But that was how it had looked all since I was a young child. 

My “true colors” had been described many a time to me. Dark reddish-brown hair, with even darker brown eyes (Clara had told me that the entire eye had grown to be very red recently). I had been told my skin was pale as a child, but my wife had told me that it had grown darker and more pink. 

I probably appeared mid-forties due to my looks, but I was surprisingly the young age of 23. Clara and I had married young, when I was only 19 while she 18. I had expected disapproval from my parents, but it was just when I had looked into contacting them and telling them the news that I had realized the both of them had been shot while visiting the museum together during a terrorist attack. 

     After a few more moments of staring into my eyes in the dim, false light, I looked down. My gaze trailed to the sink, and I turned the knob to turn on the water. Cupping some of the cold water that immediately began spilling, I splashed my face. The water trailed down my face, so much like the tears that ran down my face from staring at the sun, or the salty saliva that trailed from my dried mouth.

     Thinking about it, I looked back up at the mirror. I opened my mouth wide, and paused my movement as I saw the inside of it, dim.

     Mostly I couldn’t see inside of my gaping mouth, but I could see my tongue. It was as if someone had ripped it into multiple sections, before roughly shoving it together again. There was saliva beginning to come from my mouth again, so I roughly wiped it away and exited the bathroom.

     I entered the monochrome kitchen, or at least looking like it to me. I pulled open the cupboard above the sink, taking out a simple black cup. I filled it halfway from the water that spilled from the large nozzle. 

     I began heading for the stairs. As I did so, I lifted the cup to my dry lips and tilted my head back. The moment it hit my tongue I pulled the cup back.

     The water was… indescribable, really. Water was supposed to be tasteless (unless flavored, but this came straight from the tap), yet the water felt thick and bitter on my tongue.

     I shrugged inwardly, not drinking a sip more of the water as I held it in my hand. I’d ask Clara on her thoughts.

     I reached the stairs, and headed up them, feet making soft thuds every step as my feet hit the wood.

     When I was upstairs, I immediately headed to the bathroom. Clara had asked me to take the eyedrops that Doctor Pinquenta, our optometrist, had told me to take.

     Placing the black cup on the edge of the sink, I turned around and opened the cupboard to search through it for the capsule containing the supposedly healing eyedrops.

     Locating it, I took it in my hands, turning it over to study it.

     As many things were, it was a grey color, dark. The label read of words I didn’t know, rendering bothering to take a look at the list of ingredients used useless.

     I shrugged it off, and tilted my head back, leveling the capsule to be a few inches above my eye. I gently squeezed the bottle, and it seemed things slowed down as the droplet slowly came towards my eye.

     It seemed reflex as I quickly lifted my hand to keep the drop of liquid from touching my eye. It simply splashed into my hand, wetting the tough skin uselessly.

     I pulled away my hand to see the grey bottle above my eye still, seeing a faint moist layer over the end of the pipette.

     I simply dropped the capsule beside the sink, putting my head back down and watching it roll a few inches on its side.

     I just left it there, and turned around to look at the cabinet once again. I gently brushed away the things inside. A box of band-aids, one of q-tips, a bottle of aspirin.

     Ah, and there it was. A small grey bottle of pills.

     Clara didn’t know I had them.

     I remember it so distinctly- I had been called by my wife’s psychiatrist unexpectedly. He said to visit as soon as possible.

     Of course, that I did. I rushed to the doctor’s office, very curious of what awaited me. 

     He spoke of a few disorders, such as depression, dissociative disorder, bipolarity, as well as being suspicious of me having PTSD and schizoid personality disorder. Some sounded dreadfully familiar, and others less so. He said he wasn’t completely sure, as he had only seen me accompanying my wife the times I joined her in her visits, but he wanted to make sure I was safe and had something holding me up, and had given me these pills. He also asked me to visit on a regular basis.

     Neither of us spoke of any of it to Clara.

     That visit had been fairly recent, so the bottle rattled as I took it from the cabinet, almost completely full of the small round pills. I hadn’t taken a single one yet, but the thought had occurred to do so as I was attempting to take the eyedrops.

     I removed the child-proof cap, placing it beside the other things on the edge of the sink. I took out one of the grey pills, and shakily put it in my mouth. It tasted terrible. I quickly attempted to swallow it, but it felt dry and  _ wrong _ , so I quickly began silently choking. I struggled, grasping my throat as if it would do any good, before spitting out the small pill. It was slightly dissolved, and covered in my saliva.

     I eyed the wetted pill for a few moments, hand shaking.  _ Maybe It’s just that I can’t swallow it dry. _

     I glanced at the cup of water, half empty. I immediately dismissed the thought. The idea of attempting to drink the terrible water with the even worse pill disturbed me far too much for me to even try.

     I tossed the pill I had used into the waste bin, quickly recapping the bottle before tossing it back into the cabinet. I quivered slightly at the rattle it made, glancing at the door.  _ I don’t want Clara seeing it. _

     Luckily, my wife didn’t show up. I shook my head, tossing the pipette into the cabinet as well before shutting the pale grey door. 

     I exited the bathroom in a dash, although not before grabbing the cup of water, footsteps quick and uncoordinated.

     I slowly pushed open the door to the bedroom to see Clara asleep. She was dressed in sleeping clothes, despite the sun clearly shining in the window. 

     She was turned over on her side, eyes tightly shut and mouth in a frown. She didn’t have a blanket on her, just clutching it in her arms.

     I glided by her sleeping figure, a ghost, before looking out the window.

     Ah, there it was.

     The raw, bright light of the sun.

     I placed the cup on the edge of the windowsill and leaned on the rest.

     A few minutes later, as I was watching the burning light from outside, I heard a stirring from behind me.

     “Tom…?” came the familiar, soft voice of Clara, followed by a yawn. I turned around.

     “Clara,” she looked at me with a curious gaze as I grabbed the cup of water, and held it towards her, “can you try this? It tastes strange.”

     “Well, I hope not  _ too  _ strange. We have enough issues.” She took the cup from my hand.

     I watched expectantly as she took a sip of the water, followed by taking a gulp. I frowned at her lack of recoiling or flinching or even just  _ blinking in surprise _ .

     But I felt a course of relief when she frowned, looking at the water and then at me.

     “Does it taste strange to you as well?” I asked expectantly, watching her expression shift to something unrecognizable.

     “No,” she said softly, handing back the cup, “it tastes perfectly normal.”

She sighed, meeting my eyes. “Please just get some sleep, Thomas.”

  
  


\---

  
  


     It had been several weeks since that day, and since then not much has changed.

     I simply left both the pills and the eyedrops in the back of the cabinet, hidden from Clara from the other things within.

     Anytime Clara’s psychiatrist requested to meet with me, I gave them one reason or another that I couldn’t go, and told them I would call when I cleared up a spot in my schedule from work.

     I never called for such a thing.

     As for drinking water, I would rarely take quick gulps of it, and force it down, feeling the disgusting liquid, cold, scratch against my throat and esophagus and all things beyond that.

 

     It all remained the same cycle.

 

      It was getting boring.

 

     Maybe I can fix that.

  
  


\---

 

      I watched, a monochrome phantom leaning against the doorway to me and Clara’s bedroom.

     There she was, slowly walking towards the steps. Slender she was not, a round black figure against that damn false light.

     I approached her, silent. My eyes were red, veins clearly showing, and my skin turned dark and burnt.

     She glanced at me, shaking her head and turning back to the stairs. She placed her hand on the rail for the stairs, and began taking a step down.

     Perhaps she would have finished taking that step, and a different thump would come from the stairs, and the creak would come from the stairs rather than Clara. But that was not how it turned out.

     Just lifting my foot. Slowly.  _ Slowly _ . Precise.

     It was when my foot made contact with her back that I could see her expression as she realized what was happening.

     She looked terrified, and so utterly betrayed. She loved me. Maybe I loved her. In a past tense. But she had grown boring. And she dragged me from the Light.

     And maybe this would fix some things.

     She tumbled forward, down the stairs, a loud thump erupting from her slamming against the wood. It creaked, and I could see the wood dent from her weight.

     She then tumbled down the rest of the stairs.

     I looked at her monochrome silhouette at the bottom of the stairs. Black stained the stairs, creating splashes and pools of inky darkness.

     I headed down the stairs, the metallic smell of blood the most obvious thing in the entire house.

     It was black. Dark. Spilling from her head, creating a pool.

     She was alive, though. Her slim stomach appeared to be “shoved in,” with the most bare terms possible. She was curled up, eyes wide open.

     Her eyes met mine as I leaned down. Shaky pupils, dark. Mine pitying, although maybe it was more of something similar to patronizing.

     I sighed, pushing myself to my feet. I needed to fix her. 

     I found my eyes trailing to the lamp that stood tall in the corner of the room. From it spilled that artificial, fake light.

     I grasped the handle with a shaking fist, and dragged it over to Clara’s curled up body.

     “ _No_ ,” came her desperate plea, “Tho- Thomas- You’re goo-” She didn’t finish her sentence.

     I struck down the tall lamp, the end of it hitting her head. There was her scream, as well as the sound of glass breaking. The false light was no longer shining.

     I dropped the handle of the lamp, stepping over her curled up, silent body towards the door to the basement. I headed down the stairs after quickly turning the key, already in the lock.

     I picked my way around the dim place, before finding it.  _ Aha _ . The handle to the lever that would shut down the electricity in the house.

     As soon as my hand found it, I pulled it down.

     Everything immediately went dark in the dreary basement, and I felt my way in the dark towards the stairs. After heading up the stairs, I didn’t bother relocking the door or even closing it.

     I walked down the hall, the black blood from my wife still on my legs. As I found her body, pathetically laying there, I leaned down. I uncurled her arm that was tightly pressed to her leg, clutching it. I took her hand, and slipped off the black, bloodied ring from her finger. I put it on my other ring finger. On my left hand. Now there was one for both hands.

     I stood up, leaving the body. I immediately headed towards the door that would lead to the exit, and opened it. And I was bathed in the sun’s Light.

     As I glanced back at the cold, dark home, only one small murmur escaped my lips.

     “Lights out.”


End file.
